Was Adolf Hitler an atheist ?
or was he a believer ?

Adolf Hitler's R. C. Church never questioned his Catholicism
publicly – which is where it mattered politically – until after his demise.

Exiting an R.C. church in 1931,a posed picture which Hitler often used to show what a
"good Catholic" he was.

Catholics today can't distance themselves enough from Adolf Hitler. But that wasn't the case in the 1930's and 40's when he was one of the most powerful men on earth. Germany's Catholics were proud as peacocks to count their Fuerher as one of their own, so long as he was putting Germans back to work, and making them proud of their powerful country, following the period of great economic depression and the humiliating shame they had suffered after their defeat in World War One. Hitler was not only allowed to "get away with murder", he was allowed to get away with the mass-murder of totally innocent men, women and even children by the millions. Because Hitler has since been defeated and his villainy has come to be seen for what it was, Catholics now want to believe - and have the rest of us believe - that their church must have repudiated Hitler in his day. But try as they may to rewrite history, the fact is that once Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, neither the pope in Rome as leader of the church worldwide, nor the bishops of his own German country, ever denied membership or even public access to the sacraments to Hitler himself, nor to the many, many other top Nazi leaders of the Third Reich who claimed membership in the R.C. church. See the Roman Catholicism of the Nazi leadership and / or the excommunication they earned but never got.

I don't know of anyone who would argue that, in God's eyes, Hitler was a good Christian. What the evidence shows is that Hitler needed and wanted to be viewed as such by human beings, and specifically by as many of the population of Germany as possible at a time when 66% of them identified themselves as Protestants and 33% of them - like Hitler - viewed themselves as Roman Catholics. Adolf Hitler had as much right to call himself a "Christian" as did the whole multitude of Germans who celebrated and supported him throughout his regime, and who carried out his monstrous plan to exterminate all of the Jews, no matter how innocent, they could get their hands on.

Although we now know that in his private writings and in his candid communications with his inner circle Adolf Hitler may have expressed his true thoughts and feelings of contempt for his Catholic Church, we also know that he was a shrewd politician who knew how to manipulate the churchmen and the faithful of both of the major German faiths to his advantage, by convincing them at the time that he was a champion, rather than a foe, of Christianity. Imagine that, Hitler was a two-faced politician!

Adolf Hitler was as much a "Christian" as
all of these people are or were:

whole generations of "bible-believing people of faith", who for centuries treated people of color totally differently from the way they treated themselves and people of the same white color as themselves, and many "Christian" supporters of leaders like:

Jefferson Davis and George Wallace,

Senators Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms,

and now President Donald J. Trump

According to an article published in the French magazine, Paris Soir, Aug. 5, 1939, William Patrick Hitler heard his uncle, Adolf Hitler, in fact say : "People must not know who I am."
We don't know if he was aware of it, but the great Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote 24 centuries ago : "A tyrant needs to put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."

Here is the overwhelming evidence that – despite what he may have believed in his heart of hearts – Adolf Hitler wanted to be viewed by his Christian countrymen and their clergy as a "man of God", whom they should therefore follow and obey because their God had chosen him to lead a Christian nation into a more perfect state, purified of the demonic influence of Jews, liberals, atheists, and "Bolsheviks".

Hitler was no atheist or liberal

The official position of the Nazi "state" (or government) regarding religion was that religion was to be tolerated so long as it didn't oppose the government. Since some 65% of the German population throughout the Nazi period was Protestant and some 33% was Catholic, the Nazis called the religion officially approved "Positive Christianity". The Roman Catholic Church in turn was especially supportive of the Nazi regime so long as that regime was seen as their best hope for salvation from the very real threat of liberalism, socialism, and worst of all "Bolshevism".

Atheist Hall Converted
(into religious hall)

Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers
Wireless to the New York Times.

Berlin, May 13, 1933. – In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership.
The New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing of atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree."

The way the Nazis handled "Freethinkers Hall" in the nation's capital is a great illustration of how far they were from being "atheists" or the enemies of Christianity and/or Roman Catholicism as such.

"I too declare that I will never join forces with the parties that destroy Christianity. If there are those who now protect a threatened Christianity, where was their Christianity in those fourteen years when they went arm and arm with atheism? (i.e. during the more liberal, secular, Weimar Republic) " "Hitler 1933

"The Church's interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles."
Hitler, in a speech delivered at Koblenz, August 26, 1934.

"The national (Nazi) government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. . . . I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity . . .We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press – in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during recent years. (i.e. during the more liberal, secular, Weimar Republic) "
Hitler ( a Radio Broadcast July 22, 1933; from My New Order. ) (The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922 – 1939, Vol. 1. pp. 871 – 872, Oxford University Press, London, 1942)

Contrary to what "Christian conservatives" would have you believe,
Adolf Hitler was as opposed to liberalism as they are themselves!

"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief." Hitler Mein Kampf, pp.152

"Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain." [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5]

"Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest on
a fanatical outlook." [Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 171]

Writing on May 8, 1933 about an earlier conversation with Hitler, ( the Papal Nuncio to Germany) Archbiship Orsenigo opined that Hitler saw Christianity as essential to private life and the German state, and that without the cooperation of the Nazis, the German church could not hope to defeat liberalism, socialism, and Bolshevism.
Orsenigo reported that Hitler did not agree with the neo-pagan wing of the Nazi party, as represented in Alfred Rosenberg's The Myth of the Twentieth Century.

"There may have been a time when even parties founded on the ecclesiastical basis were a necessity. (Between World War I & II, the Catholic "Center Party" had been one of the most powerful political parties in Germany.) At that time (i.e. during the more liberal, secular, Weimar Republic)Liberalism was opposed to the Church, while Marxism was anti-religious. But that time is past. National Socialism neither opposes the church, nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.". . .

"I know that here and there the objection has been raised: Yes, but you have deserted Christianity. No, it is not that we have deserted Christianity; it is those who came before us (i.e. during the more liberal, secular, Weimar Republic) who deserted Christianity. We have only carried through a clear division between politics, which have to do with terrestrial things, and religion, which must concern itself with the celestial sphere. There has been no interference with the doctrine of the Confessions or with their religious freedom, nor will there be any such interference. On the contrary the State protects religion, though always on the one condition that religion will not be used as a cover for political ends.". . .

(A few days after the signing of the Lateran Treaty, Hitler wrote an article for the official Nazi publication Volkischer Reobachter, on Feb. 22, 1929, warmly welcoming the agreement.)
"The fact that the Curia is now making its peace with Fascism," he wrote, "shows that the Vatican trusts the new (Nazi) political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms (i.e. during the more liberal, secular, Weimar Republic) . . .I see a time when the Pope will one day welcome the church being protected from the centre (i.e. liberal Catholic) parties by National Socialism." "Turning to the German situation, he rebuked the Center Party leadership for its recalcitrant attachment to democratic politics.
"By trying to preach that democracy is still in the best interests of German Catholics, the Center Party . . . is placing itself in stark contradiction to the spirit of the treaty signed today by the Holy See."
The conclusion of his rant contained a gross distortion as well as a remarkable intuition of future opportunities:
"The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy," he went on, "proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism, to which the so-called Catholic Center Party sees itself so closely bound, to the detriment of Christianity today and our German people."

(to anyone who claimed that Christianity and the Catholic faith were threatened by the Nazi's Adolf Hitler responded) "to that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity. If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years (i.e. during the more liberal, secular, Weimar Republic) when they went arm in arm with atheism ? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity than in these 14 years when a (liberal) party, theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one and the same Government." Hitler speech delivered at Stuttgart, February 15, 1933

"Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth . . . Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world (which conservatives would call "liberal") and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea." (which conservatives would call "conservative")
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Ch. 10, (Does anyone else hear echoes of Hitler in the "Cultural War" rhetoric of the Religious Right in America in recent years? )

Hitler as God's Instrument

"Hitler did well in monastery school. He sang in the choir, found high mass and other ceremonies intoxicating, and idolized priests. Impressed by their power, he at one time considered entering the priesthood."
(and painted the madonna above at age 24)
[ from www.SecularHumanism.Org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html ]

The following are passages in which Hitler acted the part of a Catholic or Christian instrument of "the Savior", God or "Providence", grouped by the timeline of "Pre-dictatorship", followed by "Third Reich prior to the War", and finally "World War & Holocaust" :

"Pre-dictatorship" ( 1922 – 1932):

of 128 : "I had an excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal." Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 1

of 128 :
"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."
Hitler Mein Kampf, p. 46

of 128 :
”Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise.”
Hitler Mein Kampf, vol. 2, chapter I

of 128 :
We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls . . .We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity . . . in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people."
Hitler speech in Passau, 27 October 1928, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Zehlendorf, [cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich]

of 128 :
"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

of 128 :
"It was by the will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages war against God's Creation and God's Will.”
Hitler Mein Kampf, vol 2, chapter X.

of 128 :
"What we have to fight for . . . is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator."
Hitler, Mein Kampf_, p. 125

of 128 :
"And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God." Hitler Mein Kampf, p.174

of 128 :
Hitler's close friend, Dietrich Eckart, told of overhearing Hitler showing off to a lady by denouncing Berlin in these extravagant terms :

Hitler with his whip

". . . the luxury, the perversion, the iniquity, the wanton display and the Jewish materialism disgusted me so thoroughly that I was almost beside myself. I nearly imagined myself to be Jesus Christ when he came to his Father's Temple and found the money changers." Eckart described Hitler as "brandishing his whip and exclaimed that it was his mission to descend upon the capital like a Christ and scourge the corrupt." ( referring to John's Gospel, 2:14–15 )
"And when he had made a scourge of small cords, Jesus drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables."

of 128 :
"Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

of 128 :
"All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

of 128 :
"Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another . . . while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve."
Hitler, Mein Kampf, p.309

of 128 :
"I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 2

of 128 :
" the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party . . . was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3

of 128 :
"As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to his own heaven."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3

of 128 :
"For the political leader, the religious doctrines and institutions of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes!
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3

of 128 :
"In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3

of 128 :
"It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3

of 128 :
"If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3, about the leader of the Christian Social movement

of 128 :
"Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5

of 128 :
"I had so often sung 'Deutschland uber Alles' and shouted 'Heil' at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5

of 128 :
" The very first prerequisite for success is the steady and constant application of force. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5

of 128 :
"I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian-Social movement, especially in Lueger's time achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 6

of 128 :
"Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 7, reflecting on World War I

of 128 :
"The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend on human beings . . . If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among the greatest men of this earth . . . In its workings, even the religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8

of 128 :
"To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8

of 128 :
"The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among them not least the false prudery of certain circles. The first prerequisite for even the moral right to combat these things is the facilitation of earlier marriage for the coming generation. In late marriage alone lies the compulsion to retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution which is damned ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to regard himself as the 'image' of God."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10

of 128 :
"But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10

of 128 :
"While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine – an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular – right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10

of 128 :
"The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith is the foundation of all efficacy."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10

of 128 :
"Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11

of 128 :
"The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties – and this against their own nation."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11

of 128 : The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

of 128 :
"The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12

of 128 :
"Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the 'remaking' of the Reich as they call it."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1

of 128 :
"Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith. This, above all, is the fighting factor which makes a breach and opens the way for the recognition of basic religious views."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1

of 128 :
"Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1

of 128 :
"A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2

of 128 :
"It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in all seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy orphan child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth to a sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself and the rest of the world."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2

of 128 :
"That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created?"
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2

of 128 :For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

of 128 :
"It doesn't dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while millions of members of the highest culture- race must remain in entirely unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

of 128 :
"It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

of 128 :
"For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? . . . Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas . . . it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

of 128 :
"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10]

of 128 :
" [National Socialist movement], the most devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another."
Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10]

of 128 :
"For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!'
Hitler's prayer, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 2 Chapter 13]

of 128 :
Although Adolf Hitler took credit for Mein Kampf, he was no writer, nor did he read much. Someone other than Hitler has to have written this book and the most likely culprit is a conservative Jesuit priest. (Otto Strasser—one of the founders of the Nazi Party, and author of the book "Hitler and I", tells us "Mein Kampf" was 'ghostwritten' by a Jesuit Priest, Bernhardt Staempfle. Another source states, "It seems certain Father Bernhard Staempfle twice revised the manuscript." Father Carlo Falconi, The Silence of Pius XII (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1970), pp. 287 – 293.

of 128 :
"When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited."
Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

of 128 :
"I say: my feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to the fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as sufferer but as fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever beforethe fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years agoa civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people."
Hitler, Munich speech of April 12, 1922

of 128 :
"Just as the Jew could once incite the mob of Jerusalem against Christ, so today he must succeed in inciting folk who have been duped into madness to attack those who, God's truth! seek to deal with this people in utter honesty and sincerity."
Hitler speech in Munich, 28 July 1922

of 128 :
"In the Bible we find the text, "That which is neither hot nor cold will I spew out of my mouth." This utterance of the great Nazarene has kept its profound validity until the present day."
Hitler The Christianity of Hitler revealed in his speeches and proclamations. Speech in Munich, 10 April 1923

of 128 :
In a 1926 speech, Hitler stated that the goal of the Nazi Party was to “translate the ideals of Christ into deeds” and complete “the work which Christ had begun but could not finish.” (Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 27.)

of 128 :
Hitler declared that the "true message" of Christianity "was to be found only with Nazism," and "where the churches have failed in their mission to instill Christian ethic into secular society, his movement would take up the task." (Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 27–28.)

of 128 :
"Let us pray in this hour that nothing can divide us, and that God will help us against the Devil! Almighty Lord, bless our fight!
Hitler address to the SA in 1930

Third Reich prior to World War II ( 1933 – 1939 ):

of 128 :
"The National (Nazi) Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
Hitler proclamation to the German nation at Berlin, 1 February 1933

of 128 :
"We are determined, as leaders of the nation, to fulfill as a national government the task which has been given to us, swearing fidelity only to God, our conscience, and our Volk. . . This the national government will regard its first and foremost duty to restore the unity of spirit and purpose of our Volk. It will preserve and defend the foundations upon which the power of our nation rests. It will take Christianity, as the basis of our collective morality, and the family as the nucleus of our Volk and state, under its firm protection. . . May God Almighty take our work into his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with the trust of our Volk."
Hitler addressing the German nation as Chancellor for the first time, 1 February 1933

of 128 :
"May Almighty God take our work to his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with the confidence of our Volk." – upon assuming power in 1933 –

of 128 :
"And now Staatspräsident Bolz says that Christianity and the Catholic faith are threatened by us. And to that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity. If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years when they went arm in arm with atheism? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity than in these 14 years when a party, theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one and the same Government."
Hitler speech delivered at Stuttgart, February 15, 1933

Jesus, a German soldier and an Aryan family adorn the pulpit of the imposing Martin Luther Memorial Church established in the 1930's in Mariendorf (south Berlin)

of 128 :
"Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain. . . The truth of that text was proved if one looks at the house of which the foundations were laid in 1918 and which since then has been in building. . . The world will not help, the people must help itself. Its own strength is the source of life. That strength the Almighty has given us to use; that in it and through it we may wage the battle of our life. . . The others in the past years have not had the blessing of the Almightyof Him Who in the last resort, whatever man may do, holds in His hands the final decision. Lord God, let us never hesitate or play the coward, let us never forget the duty which we have taken upon us. . . We are all proud that through God's powerful aid we have become once more true Germans."
Hitler speech, March 1933. [Note, "Except the Lord built the house, they labour in vain" comes from Psalms 127:1 ]

of 128 :
"The National Government regards the two Christian confessions as factors essential to the soul of the German people. It will respect the contracts they have made with the various regions. It declares its determination to leave their rights intact. In the schools, the government will protect the rightful influence of the Christian bodies. We hold the spiritual forces of Christianity to be indispensable elements in the moral uplift of most of the German people. We hope to develop friendly relations with the Holy See"
. . . "The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life."
Hitler addressed the Reichstag on March 23, 1933)

of 128 :
"The Government of the Reich, which regards Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attaches the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See, and is endeavouring
to develop them. . . The rights of the churches will not be diminished."
Hitler speech to the Reichstag, 23 March 1933 ( from The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922 – 1939, Vol. 1, pg. 369 – 372 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942 – edition of 1969.)

of 128 :
"As we see in Christianity the unshakable foundation of moral life, so it is our duty to
continue to cultivate friendly relations with the Holy See and to develop them."
Hitler's speech to the Reichstag on March 23rd, 1933, in which he indicated the programme
of his Government. See Universe, March 31st, 1933.

of 128 :
"Woman's world is her husband, her family, her children and her home. We do not find it right when she presses into the world of men."
Adolph Hitler, quoted in Lucy Komisar, The New Feminism

of 128 :
"We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, our will. We ask not of the Almighty "Lord, make us free"!we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: "Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is not longer the people of dishonour, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices." "Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland."
Hitler speech, May 1, 1933

of 128 :
"The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc. . . . I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions."
Hitler 26 April 1933, [cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich]
Surely this is the end of the list, right? Not nearly. We are only up to May Day of Hitler's first year in office, 1933! And we are only half way through the list. But in order to move on to other important matters on this page, we've put the other 60 or so quotes on a second page.

Adolf Hitler's "atheism" :

Although Adolf Hitler was raised as a devout Catholic and was greatly influenced by his background, he lost his faith as an adult. Here are quotes that Catholic apologists use to argue that Hitler and Catholicism were opposed to one another. They argue that "The book Hitler's Secret Conversations: 1941 – 1944, published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc. (1953), contains definitive proof of Hitler's real
views. The book was published in Britain under the title, Hitler's Table Talk: 1941 – 1944, which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.

However, inasmuch as these are quotes attributed to Adolf Hitler after he was no longer around to confirm or deny them, and they were witnessed only by a few associates whose motives can be questioned, they are far from "definitive proof" of anything.

In early 1933, Hitler supposedly vowed secretly to completely eradicate Christianity from Germany. 'You are either a Christian or a German, you cannot be both.' But Hitler was smart enough to know that in a nation as Christian as Germany, one could not let such views to be become known to the public or the Christian churches.

"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together. . . . The heaviest
blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism
is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The
deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by
Christianity. . . . Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life
of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (Night of 11th-12th July, 1941, p 6 &
7)

"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature.
Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic
cultivation of the human failure."

(10th October, 1941, midday, p 43
)

"Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity. . . . Christianity has reached the peak of
absurdity. . . . And that's why someday its structure will collapse. . . .
. . . the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by
little. . . . Christianity [is] the liar. . . . We'll see to it that the
Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of
the State."

(14th October, 1941, midday:p 49 – 52)

"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it
knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."

19th October, 1941, night:

"Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the
destroyer. . . . The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work
of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work. . . for the purposes of personal
exploitation. . . . Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle
Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in
the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday
the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed
into St. Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest,
we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea."

(21st October, 1941, midday, p 63 – 65)

"I can imagine people being enthusiastic about the paradise of Mahomet, but as for the insipid paradise of the Christians! . . . Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing
more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the
Godhead into a mockery. . . . [here he insults people who believe
transubstantiation] . . . . When all is said, we have no reason to wish that
the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of
Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunized against the
disease."

(13th December, 1941, midnight, p 118 & 119)

"Kerry, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between
National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the things possible,
and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself. . . . Pure Christianity – the
Christianity of the catacombs – is concerned with translating Christian
doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind.
It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics."

(14th December, 1941, midday, p 119 & 120)

"There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)
Hitler 27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man
who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his
imperfection, can commit innumerable errors – but to devote myself
deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come
personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch In the next 200
years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. . . . My
regret will have been that I couldn't. . . behold its demise."

( 9th April, 1942, dinner:p 278)
(While opposing his church on racial selection, Hitler appears to have supported it when it came to birth control and abortion:)

"At one time the Spartans were capable of such a wise measure, but not our present, mendaciously sentimental, bourgeois patriotic nonsense. The rule of six thousand Spartans over three hundred and fifty thousand Helots was only thinkable in consequence of the high racial value of the Spartans. But this was the result of a systematic race preservation; thus Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of sick, weak, deformed children, in short their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses."
Hitler (1961) (in English). Hitler's Secret Book. New York: Grove Press. pp. 8 – 9, 17 – 18. ISBN 0394620038. OCLC 9830111. ; Mike Hawkins (1997) (in English). Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860 – 1945: nature as model and nature as threat. Cambridge University Press. p. 276. ISBN 052157434X. OCLC 34705047.

If, in the course of a thousand or two thousand years, science arrives at the necessity of renewing its points of view, that will not mean that science is a liar. Science cannot lie, for it's always striving, according to the momentary state of knowledge, to deduce what is true. When it makes a mistake, it does so in good faith. It is Christianity that is the liar. It's in perpetual conflict with itself."
Hitler 14 October 1941

"It is not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that is left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity."
Hitler 14 October 1941

" Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday, the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul has changed into St. Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea."
Hitler 21 October 1941

"But for the coming of Christianity, who knows how the history of Europe would have developed? Rome would have conquered all Europe, and the onrush of the Huns would have been broken on the legions. It was Christianity that brought about the fall of Romenot the Germans or the Huns. What Bolshevism is achieving today on the materialist and technical level, Christianity had achieved on the metaphysical level. When the Crown sees the throne totter, it needs the support of the masses."
Hitler 27 January 1942

"As soon as the idea was introduced that all men were equal before God, that world was bound to collapse."
Hitler 26 February 1942

"The fact that the Japanese have retained their political philosophy, which is one of the essential reasons for their success, is due to their having been saved in time from the views of Christianity. Just as in Islam, there is no terrorism in the Japanese State religion, but, on the contrary, a promise of happiness. This terrorism in religion is, to put it briefly, of a Jewish dogma, which Christianity has universalized and whose effect is to sow trouble and confusion in men's minds."
Hitler 4 April 1942

"It is deplorable that the Bible should have been translated into German, and that the whole of the German Folk should have thus become exposed to the whole of this Jewish mumbo jumbo. . . As a sane German, one is flabbergasted to think that German human beings could have let themselves be brought to such a pass by Jewish filth and priestly twaddle, that they were little different from the howling dervish of the Turks and the negroes, at whom we laugh so scornfully. It angers one to think that, while in other parts of the globe religious teaching like that of Confucius, Buddha and Mohammed offers an undeniably broad basis for the religious-minded, Germans should have been duped by a theological exposition devoid of all honest depth."
Hitler 5 June 1942

"The American statesmen, by subjecting the Church to the same regulations governing all other associations and institutions, have limited its field of activity to reasonable proportions; and, as the State does not contribute from State Funds one single cent to the church, the whole clergy cringes and sings hymns in praise of Government. This is not to be wondered at! The parson, like everyone else, has got to live; what he makes out of the public offertory doesn't amount to much, and so he is more or less dependent on State charity. As he has no legal claim whatever on the State, he therefore takes very good care that his demeanour is always pleasing in the eyes of the State and therefore deserving of the crumbs it cares to toss to him."
Hitler 4 July 1942

"The development of relations between State and Church affords a very instructive example of how the carelessness of a single statesman can have after-effects which last for centuries. When Charlemagne was kneeling at prayer in St. Peter's, Rome, at Christmas in the year 800, the Pope, giving him no time to work out the possible effects of so symbolic an action, suddenly bent down and presto! popped a golden crown on his head! By permitting it, the Emperor delivered himself and his successors into the hands of a power which subjected the German Government and the German people to five hundred years of martyrdom."
Hitler 4 July 1942

Hitler Was Not An Atheist, by John Patrick Michael Murphy

In George Orwell's 1984, it was stated, "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Who is going to control the present-fundamentalism or freedom?
History is being distorted by many preachers and politicians. They are heard on the airwaves condemning atheists and routinely claim Adolf Hitler was one.

Hitler was a Roman Catholic, baptized into that religio-political institution as an infant in Austria. He became a communicant and an altar boy in his youth and was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ" in at his mother's wish on Whit Sunday 1904 at the Cathedral at Linz. Hitler still went to confession and communion in 1918. (from http://yearegods.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/was-hitler-a-christian/ ) He himself wrote of that period of his life : "I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal". [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 1]
[ The most extensive article I have seen on Hitler's youth is http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/boyhood.htm.]

Its worst doctrines never left him. He was steeped in its liturgy, which contained the words "perfidious Jew." This hateful statement was not removed until 1961. "Perfidy" means treachery. In his day, hatred of Jews was the norm. In great measure it was sponsored by two major religions of Germany, Catholicism and Lutheranism.

He greatly admired Martin Luther, who openly hated the Jews. Luther condemned the Catholic Church for its pretensions and corruption, but he supported the centuries of papal pogroms against the Jews. Luther said, "The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves," and "We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them." "Ungodly wretches" he called the Jews in his book, Table Talk.

Hitler seeking power, wrote in Mein Kampf, " . . . I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." Years later, when in power, he quoted those same words in a Reichstag speech in 1938. Three years later he informed General Gerhart Engel: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." He never left the church, and the church never left him. Great literature was banned by his church, but his miserable Mein Kampf never appeared on the index of Forbidden Books. He was not excommunicated or even condemned by his church. Popes, in fact, contracted with Hitler and his fascist friends Franco and Mussolini, giving them veto power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain, and Italy. The three thugs agreed to surtax the Catholics of these countries and send the money to Rome in exchange for making sure the state could control the church.

Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books before they address their pews and microphones. Acclaimed Hitler biographer John Toland explains his heartlessness as follows: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite the detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jews was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god . . . "

Hitler's Germany amalgamated state with church. Soldiers of the Vermacht wore belt buckles inscribed with the following: "Gott mit uns" (God is with us). His troops were often sprinkled with holy water by the priests. It was a real (99%) Christian country whose citizens were indoctrinated by both state and church and blindly followed all authority figures, political and ecclesiastical.

Hitler, like some of the today's politicians and preachers, politicized "family values." He liked corporal punishment in home and school. Jesus prayers became mandatory in all schools under his administration. While abortion was illegal in pre-Hitler Germany, he took it to new depths of enforcement, requiring all doctors to report to the government the circumstances of all miscarriages. He openly despised homosexuality and criminalized it."

The author is a retired attorney in Colorado Springs who writes a weekly column for an alternative newspaper.

{ from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 19, Number 2 }

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
+ The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. +

"Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law (as well as the church) on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal."

During the Third Reich some conservative Christian churchmen used what IMHO is one of the most horrible passages in the New Testament in support of Hitler and his regime, namely

"Letter to the Romans" 13:1–7

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval;
for it is God's servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.
Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.
For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, busy with this very thing.
Pay to all what is due them–taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. "

All of those who really believe that this passage is inspired and inerrant have no choice but to support "the divine right" of tyrants like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Min, Castro, Milosovich, Saddam Hussein and all the other monsters to stay in power for as long as God allows. Far from allowing anyone to try to remove such rulers, this "Word of God" according to Paul compels "Christians" to respect and obey such rulers : "there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. . . Therefore, whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed." Paul doesn't allow for the slightest bit of "interpretation". He drives home his point over and over again, that we should treat any and all rulersas God's very own appointees to whatever office they hold, be it governor, king, emperor, president, prime minister, secretary general, or Führer. No "if's", "and's" or "but's" !

The "Godfather" of Nazism :

"Hitler's concern not to alienate traditionalist opinion was eminently political and made sense in a rural Catholic region like Bavaria, which had been the cradle of the Nazi movement between 1919 and 1925. Moreover, Hitler recognized the affinity between local anti Jewish religious traditions typified by such popular festivals as the Oberammergau Passion Play (which highlighted the Jews' primary role in Christ's crucifixion) and his own violent anti-Semitism. The potency of this inflammatory strand of folk prejudice, accentuated by the linkage in the popular mind between Jews and Communism in post-1919 Munich, explains why Hitler sought to appropriate the Christian anti-Jewish tradition for his own demagogic ends. It is succinctly summed up in that notorious passage in Mein Kampf where he rails, "In defending myself against the Jews I am acting for the Lord." The continuity is equally evident whenever Hitler's speeches passionately evoked_ Jesus as "the scourge of the Jews" or praised the "utterance(s) of the great Nazarene, who had always despised the golden mean, whether in politics or in life. Small wonder, then, that the Nazis were eager in the early years to tap into the centuries-old tradition of Christian anti-Semitism for electoral purposes and present their doctrines as heir compatible with "positive" Christianity. To understand what Hitler meant by this propagandist phrase, it is important to remember that his ideas in the 1920s were strongly influenced by the "spiritual" godfather of Nazism, the Bavarian Catholic Journalist Dietrich Eckart, whom he admired as "an outstanding writer and thinker" and to whom ( the 2nd volume of) Mein Kampf' was dedicated. Twenty years older than Hitler, Eckart had introduced his raw, energetic protege to Munich society, improved his social graces and his German, reshaping his racist anti-Semitism and grooming, him for the role of messianic savior of Germany. Eckart had invented the Nazi battle cry "Deutschland Erwache!" (Germans awake!), the title of one of his poems. In 1919, he began publication of the ultranationalist weekly Auf Gut Deutsch, which attacked the Treaty of Versailles, Jewish scar profiteers, Bolshevism, and social democracy. Eckart's eclectic combination of volkisch racism with Catholic mysticism and his Manichaean view of the world as a battle between the forces of light and darkness (embodied by Aryan and Jew) appealed strongly to the early Hitler. He looked up to Eckart as a prophet, teacher, and father figure whose services to National Socialism were "inestimable," and he shared his view that "the Jewish Question is the chief problem of humanity, in which, indeed, every one of its other problems is contained." Equally, he shared Eckart's conviction that Christ's revelation had been radically distorted by the apostle Paul and overlaid with a cold "Jewish" materialism from which all social evils had subsequently proceeded.
In post-1918 Germany, the decadent condition of which Eckart compared to that of the late Roman Empire (where "Judaism" under the "cover" of Christianity had first engineered a moral collapse), the situation was perilous in the extreme. The prince causes of "decomposition" were capitalism, Bolshevism, and Freemasonry –three deadly modern agents of (judaization). The only salvation for the German Volk lay in a fusion of nationalism, socialism, and positive Christianity," though this trinity would have to be stripped of any Jewish component and reinterpreted in a fundamentally "anti materialist" spirit. Eckart died in 1924, but his ambitious pupil later implemented his millenarian program of redemptive anti-Semitism to devastating effect.''

By brandishing the slogan of "positive Christianity" and projecting their leader as a deeply religious figure (Hitler's frequent references to "Divine Providence" made this easier), Nazi Party image makers could suggest that their movement defended traditionalist values, especially against "godless Marxism." (pp. 124 – 129) Hitler and the Holocaust, by Robert S. Wistrich
"Just 1.5 percent of Germans identified themselves as unbelievers in a 1939 census, which means either that very few Nazis and National Socialist German Worker's Party supporters were atheists, or that atheists feared to identify themselves to the pro-theistic regime." [ from an internet article. ]

After claiming throughout the period of the Third Reich that the Vatican "neutrality" prevented it from speaking out against the Nazis, "The Catholic Church, which claimed the religious allegiance of 98 per cent of the Italian people, was forbidden by Italian electoral law from engaging in politics. Nevertheless, the Church threw its entire weight behind the Christian Democrats, led by a former Librarian of the Vatican. The Pope himself stated that Catholics who voted Communist would be denied absolution. The implications of this were made clear in one highly publicized incident. When the Communist mayor of the village of Giuliano, Francesco Frezza, who was also a devout Catholic that never missed a Sunday Mass in all his life, died, he was denied a Catholic burial by the local Bishop. Peasants who attempted to bring his body into the church found their way blocked by a cordon of police. In addition to invoking what for Catholics are the most serious religious sanctions, the Church also supplied an "infantry" for the Christian Democrat's campaign. The Catholic Action organization set up "civic committees" in 18,000 parishes to get out the vote for the Christian Democrats. After the election, the leaders of Catholic Action claimed to be directly responsible for 40 per cent of the Christian Democrat vote."

"The Nazis championed traditional family values: their ideology was conservative, bourgeois, patriarchal, and strongly anti-feminist. Discipline and conformity were emphasized, marriage promoted, abortion and homosexuality despised. . .Most religious Germans detested the impiety, secularism, and hedonistic decadence that they associated with such modernist ideas as democracy and free speech. If they feared democracy, they were terrified by Communism, to the point of being willing to accept extreme counter-methods."

[ from http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html ]

Here's what one of the most influential Catholic statesmen of the Third Reich had to say :
"The Third Reich is the first world power which not only acknowledges but also puts into practice the high principles of the papacy". (Robert d'Harcourt of the French Academy: "Franz von Papen, l'homme a tout faire" L'Aube, 3rd of October 1946).

And here's what one of the Catholic church's "favorite sons" had to say when he learned of Hitler's death:
"Adolf Hitler, son of the Catholic Church, died while defending Christianity. It is therefore understandable that words cannot be found to lament his death, when so many were found to exalt his life. Over his mortal remains stands his victorious moral figure. With the palm of the martyr, God gives Hitler the laurels of Victory". - Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, (Knight of the Order of Christ) published on the 3rd of May 1945, the day of Hitler's death. (published in "Reforme", July 21, 1945.)

Conclusion :

Considering all of the above, what is the verdict? Was Adolf Hitler a Christian, or a Catholic, or none of the above?

The answer to that important question depends on what the user of the words "was he" means by them.

If one is asking if Hitler was a Christian in God's eyes (if you believe in one), the answer is probably no.

If one is asking if Hitler was a Christian in his own eyes, once again, the answer is probably no.

But, if one is asking if Hitler wanted to be a Roman Catholic Christian in the eyes of the German nation during the period of the Third Reich, I believe this page proves that the answer to that crucial question has to be a resounding YES. That may embarrass Christians and his Roman Catholic church now, but the time that they should have wanted to deny Hitler's Christian identity was then, not now !

Now I ask you, what impact did 1) God's view or 2) Hitler's view of his faith have on history?
On the other hand, one doesn't need to be a genius to understand that it was extremely important in a country where 98% of the population viewed themselves as Christian, that Hitler persuade the masses that he was one of them, i.e. Christian, even if, in his heart of hearts, he was nothing of the kind.
And by the same token, it was equally urgent, on the other hand, for the "gate-keepers" of Christianity, i.e. the leader of the church world-wide and the hierarchy of Germany at the time, who had very extensive knowledge of Hitler and Germany to deny Hitler that powerful appeal to the faithful, since he was so undeserving of it.

While Roman Catholics from the pope on down have been tripping all over themselves to divorce themselves from Hitler and the Fascist regimes of Croatia, Italy and Germany ever since their demise, I provide mountains of evidence that the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church did the very opposite when denunciation of the Nazi monsters by the Christian moral authorities during that period could have had a tremendous impact on the course of European and world history, at MoralRelativism-RC-Style.html and the sites linked there.

Every time regular army NAZI soldiers polished the belt buckle of their uniform, they were reminded that "God is with us".
Members of the Wehrmacht (regular army) swore this loyalty oath: "I swear by God this holy oath to the Fuëhrer of
the German Reich and the German people, Adolf Hitler." Even the members of Hitler's nefarious Nazi S.S., swore a loyalty oath that reached out to God: "I pledge to you, Adolf Hitler, my obedience unto death, so help me God."

Who actually wrote what ?

The Holocaust museum attributes the following famous words to the German Protestant pastor Martin Niemoller:

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out
because I was not a communist.
"Then they came for the trade-unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade-unionist.
"Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me."

There is no exact evidence as far as I could find that Martin Niemoller actually authored these words. But one thing is sure, and that is the inauthenticity of the version recorded in the Congressional Record, for October 14, 1968, on page 31,636, where "they" (meaning the Nazis) is replaced with "Hitler" and "communists" is replaced with "Catholics" and "me" is replaced with "me and the Protestant church".

"When Hitler attacked the Jews, I was not a Jew,
therefore I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the Catholics,
I was not a Catholic, and therefore,
I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists,
I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned.
Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church
and there was nobody left to be concerned."

How dishonest this version is, when the truth of the matter is that the "communists" were clearly one of the principal targets of the Nazis, while the Catholics and Protestants were not so much victims of the Holocaust as perpetrators of it.